The widow stared. This was a little nearer to impertinence than anything she had before encountered.
"You moind the Gineral made gravy, do you?" she said at last. "And good gravy, too?"
Jim was obliged to own that he remembered it. "And that he done it with an apron on to kape from gettin' burnt and spattered?"
Jim nodded.
"Him that ain't above makin' gravy, ain't above washin' dishes, nayther," was the statement made in Mrs. O'Callaghan's most impressive manner. "Show Gineral Brady a pile of dishes that it was his place to wash, and he'd wash 'em, you may depind. 'Tis iver the biggest folks as will do little things loike that when they has to, and do 'em good, too. What's got into you, Jim?"
"You think Pat and Mike and Andy's better than me," burst out the jealous little fellow.
"I think," said his mother, "that Pat and Moike and Andy does better than you, for they takes what's set for 'em and does it as good as they can. But you're all Tim's b'ys, so you are."
"If I done like Pat and Mike and Andy," asked Jim hesitatingly, "would you think I was just as good?"
"Sure and I would, Jim," said his mother earnestly. "Will you try?"
"I will."